


Second Life

by JessicaPendragon



Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-29 01:41:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5111678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JessicaPendragon/pseuds/JessicaPendragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is not an easy thing to separate a man from his head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second Life

**Author's Note:**

> A daficswap entry for for brennacedria and her Hawke, Ria.

It is not an easy thing to separate a man from his head.

A few years ago, Ria would never have believed such a notion would drift through her head. Her father set her on the path of training with daggers, but she didn’t think it would become more than a way to pass the time, a hobby to break up the maddening lulls of Lothering. It all seems like a lifetime ago. A different Marian Hawke.

Nothing is the same now.

The one that cuts through Lowtown could never have been born for anything but this. The bandits seem to come from nowhere, but their sudden arrival doesn’t fill her with fear. The way her daggers sing from their sheaths stirs in her blood, sets her heart beating to a hangman’s drum. With a Cheshire grin, she cuts through their ranks, flashing and laughing, death drawing from shadows and dust.

“Enjoying yourself, Hawke?” Varric calls across the battlefield.

“You always take me to the loveliest of places!” she shouts back as she slips between the soft spots in armor. One by one the bandits fall to her knives, to Varric’s arrows, Anders’ spells, and Aveline’s steel. They have become something of a family, awash in their shared blood and that of their foes. They’ve become a home she takes with her and it is sometimes easy to forget the cottage across the sea.

That Ria didn’t know what living was. She was never stripped bare, broken and rearranged into something stronger. She never would have understood the thrill of the first cut, the graceful dance of death and how there is freedom in having nothing left to lose. Kirkwall has changed her into something that can fight back.

And damn, is she good at it. Isabela has all the flare of a flashbomb, but Ria is the poison you never see coming. She is an angel with wings she tore from her shoulders herself, for she belongs in the muck and mire of this city of the fallen where you survive on the edge of a knife – yours or someone else’s.

Aveline slices her sword into the neck of the last enemy. It sticks, stuck in bone and muscle, and the warrior grunts in disgust and annoyance alike. With a roar she throws all her strength into the next cut and the man’s head rolls off his shoulders and bumps its way towards Ria’s feet. She sticks her boot out to stop it and Varric groans at the sight of it all.

“Was that really necessary?”

Aveline only grunts in response as she cleans her blade and replaces it with a satisfied thunk. Ria tips her foot, glancing down at this would be thief with something like disappointment.

“A battle is really no place to lose one’s head, wouldn’t you say Varric?”

Varric grasps his chin in thought. “He did seem to jump headfirst into this fight without thinking.”

“Maker, are we really doing this?” Anders mutters nearby.

“He really has no body to blame but himself,” Ria continues.

Aveline growls. “Hawke, I swear.”

Ria shrugs with a not so innocent smile in her eyes and sets to cleaning off her own weapons and checking gear. They’ve learned not to linger too long in the lowest parts of the city, so they strip what they can and leave the rest for the dogs. She walks over to the headless corpse and finds a fat purse waiting for her nimble fingers. With a flick of her wrist, she tosses it into the air and the coins inside dance and play for her amusement.

“When will they ever learn?” Aveline says, shaking her head at the carnage.

“Yes,” Ria pauses, catching her friend’s eyes. “Crime is really no way to get ahead in life.”

“Hawke!”

Well, perhaps some things are still the same.


End file.
